And you can pick up a good macro lens used. I get most of my lenses used off of ebay. Or form adorama, bhphoto or keh. But I find the best prices on ebay. But you need to know what you are looking for.

One more thing as you are planning to upgrade not to down the line, you will still want a good back up camera. So one of the compact dslr would be good. But with nikon, some of their macro lenses will not auto focus on their compact dslr. You will most likely not miss it for the product shooting. But it will be miss for portraits. As macro lenses make great portrait lenses.

I found a factory refurbished Nikon D40x for $330 and a D60 for $350 either would leave me more funds for lenses. Is there a distinct advantage for one over the other? I seem to have a rather strong sentimental attachment to Nikon since that's what I carried in the Air Force.

The d40 and d60 will not use all the nikon lenses. You may be limited to a more expensive AF-s and AF-i 1:1 macro lenses if you want it to auto focus for portrait work. But they do have some nice ones. The D60 just has a higher resolution then the D40.

I recently "retired to backup duty" my D40 and it served me well. The D40x was an intermediate upgrade that brought the sensor up to the D60, and when the D60 was released, it added additional features. A lot has been said about lens limitation and having to use manual focus etc. Reality is between Nikon, Sigma, and Tamron there are 9 models of macro primes and 6 of the nine will work. Those that will work include the Nikon 60, 85, and 105, Sigma 150 and Tamron 60 and 90. Both 60's the 85 and 90 are all in the $450-500 range. While there isn't really a 'bad' choice on macros as they are all sharp as a tack, the 105 is what I drool over...but it is $900, and would probably compromise down to Nikon's 85 ot Tamron's 90. The 60's require you to be very close in for macro, and the 150 and above would not be the best for portraits.

The three lens that require manual focus on those cameras as Nikon older (non AF-S) 60, and 200 as well as Sigma's 105. Of that group, I would only see the Sigma as a possible contender for your described useage.

I haven't compared the specs of the D40x vs the D60 which are probably archived on Nikon site somewhere. Since they are so similar, the one area I would look for are focus points. Not certain if the D40x continued the 3 focus points of the D40 or if it was increased with that model or the D60. I don't think they waited until the D3000 generation. During my years with the D40, that was probably the most frustrating part - not the 'lens limitation.' Press the shutter and nothing happens because I can't decide what to focus on. Probably not a major issue with product photography as it would be dead center like one of the focus points.

I would get one with more focus point, it makes for a more versatile camera. It would be a bit annoying to try to shoot a off center portrait shot, and not have the camera find the proper focus point. D60 if it has more focus points would be the better all around camera.

But I have play around with the sigma 105, it is a really good macro lens. It was my second choice after my canon 100mm macro.